driftglass takes up a topic near and dear to my heart because it’s a cancer that still corrodes and corrupts the U.S.: the use of hate-mongering by the Right to gain and keep political power. And you thought I was Mad (and if you’re not reading driftglass, what the hell’s the matter with you).
driftglass writes:

And every year it gets easier to call a feminist a “feminazi”. A Liberal “America-hating”. A homosexual an “abomination”. A scientist a Godless “tree-hugger”.

To accept the swiftboating of patriots as normal, and to vote sadistic, damaged drunks and war criminals into office.

And every year [Tim] Russert has to yell “What noise?” a little more loudly to be heard over the shrieking from inside the walls of Mordor that gets ever more deafening, more reckless and more hysterical year after year after year.

So let me make this a little clearer, Tim, and see if a different pitch or tone can improve your hearing.

How would you feel if I stood in the public square and called Big Russ a coward at 100,000 decibels?

Called him a gutless, ball-less, godless coward. A dupe for the enemies of the country. A betrayer who celebrates the failure of America and dances on the graves of her fallen children.

Big Russ hates work. He is a lazy parasite who wants to scam a living off of the hard labor of others. He wants to see the economy fail.

The military fail.

America fail.

He is a man without honor, and a fool to boot.

Do I have your attention now, Tim? Because this is how our fathers are treated by the Right.

This is how our mothers are vilified every day for fighting for the rights of working people. This is how our wives and husbands are slurred for demanding voting rights be respected. This is how our sisters are slapped for trying to make heath care and a decent education affordable for every American, and how our brothers are mocked for trying to stop a global climate change catastrophe.

How our kids are sneered at for working for peace.

This is how our kin by the millions are casually slandered in the press and in the pulpit, by men and women who are not fit to wipe their asses.